I’ve almost passed the one-month mark!

It’s rather exciting to get through these weekly milestones, but the end-of-month ones will look more impressive, no?

22/365: friday night laziness
23/365: morning hair and fresh apple juice
24/365: me + cupcake
25/365: unimaginative pic, sorry
26/365: end of aus day
27/365: mmm, lamington
28/365: what coke reduction?

Why I’m against Australia’s planned interwebs censorship

If you get to this here blog in the traditional way (i.e. not with Google Reader), you would have noticed a popup protest about the Australian Government’s planned censorship of our internet:

The idea that MY internet connection could be filtered by “my” Government is nothing short of ridiculous.

Yes, there are horrible things on the internet. But “my” Government has no right to tell me what I can have access to.

A beautiful friend of mine has been battling Crohn’s disease for as long as I can remember. She finds it difficult to deal with the reality of her disease—the hospitalisation, the treatments (she’s even had chemo to try to cure this). She’s fighting to have a healthy life, something that I take for granted. She seeks solace in online Crohn’s support forums—places where she can connect with other Crohn’s sufferers; where they share their journeys and give each other strength.

Under a 2009 trial of the internet filter with certain Australian ISPs, this Crohn’s support forum was blocked. I can’t tell you how heartbreaking it was to hear that something so important to MY friend was going to be denied to her by “my” Government’s internet filter.

Tell me, how is a web site like this a risk to children? Children can get Crohn’s too, you know.

The filter won’t stop cyber-bullying. It won’t stop all child pornography. The list of banned sites will not be publicly available or open to review.

All throughout this post, I’ve referred to the current Australian Government as “my” Government.

Why?

Because:

• Regardless of the fact that I am a moderate leftie
• Regardless of the fact that I danced like a crazy lady when Howard was voted out
• Regardless of the fact that I had big hopes for K-Rudd during his election campaign, when I voted for him and when he won
• Regardless of the fact that my grandfather was Assistant General Secretary of the New South Wales Labor Party and DLP Senator for NSW (and I’m proud of my Pop’s political history, rest his soul)
• If the internet filter becomes one of K-Rudd’s next election promises, you can be sure as shit that I’ll be voting the other way

The filter is just plain wrong.

If you want to find out more, visit The Great Australian Internet Blackout. Their ability to articulate the point of being anti-censorship is far more eloquent than I could ever be.

The week that features my favourite pic so far this year

A bit late with week 3 of 2010, but c’mon, I went back to work and haven’t exactly been coping too well:

15/365: sooky la la | 16/365: me + Saturday night porn | 17/365: Pls don’t make me go back to work tomorrow :(  | 18/365: don’t go back to work mama | 19/365: menial desk tasks are sending me cuckoo | 20/365: happy reunion with Suzie the Singer | 21/365: being patriotic

My favourite?

Flight attendants will never be this awesome in Australia

Safety demonstration: you’re doing it right!

Friday night lazy post brought to you by YouTube!

Minces Hitler (and some Colbert porn)

I love some of the random phrases that come up on Captcha occasionally. I got this one just now when I was leaving a comment over at No Fact Zone:

There’s no real message in this popping up when the words are randomly generated, but it’s funny to imagine a programmer hunched over her/his computer choosing these two words to go together.

Because this all started because I wanted to leave a comment on my favourite Stephen Colbert fansite, so here’s some Colbert porn:

Don’t forget that ABC2 (bless their little cotton socks) now shows the Colbert Report (mere hours after it airs in the ’states) at 7.30pm Tuesday to Friday.

Meet Suzie the Sewing Lady (and see how I’ve royally screwed up)

This is Suzie:

Suzie is a Singer Stylist Zig Zag 457, a model from 1968. She’s 11 years younger than Buela, the other sewing machine in my life at the moment.

I’ve been feeling a bit guilty since I picked up Suzie last night; like I’m cheating on Buela, who’s packed away in the corner of my bedroom.

Buela is a beautiful girl and runs like a charm, but she’s only got two speeds: full throttle and full stop. I don’t have the required 1337 sewing skillz to keep up with her; my stitches were WAY off if I tried to do anything too creative (like follow a pattern).

Suzie runs just as beautifully as Buela, and lets me drive in first gear, meaning I was able to sew nice curves and such. Suzie had me in a very good mood when I went to bed last night.

But then this morning I got up and planned to practice a bit more on Suzie before trying something closer to a Proper Sewing Project. And suddenly the feed dog stopped working. After much Googling I was feeling brave enough to undertake some investigative surgery on Suzie.

And then, I found the source of the problem (excuse the blurry panicked photo):

SHIT. Part of one of the gears (plastic ones!) that operate the feed dog has melted. While part of me is chuffed that I successfully diagnosed the issue ALL BY MYSELF (and Google) another part of me is feeling so so SO guilty.

I’ve probably caused the gear to melt. It’s not even MY sewing machine. I don’t deserve a sewing machine!

I’ve called a couple of places and spoke native Sewing Machine fluently enough for them to understand what I needed and how much it would cost to replace the gear. Just waiting for Suzie’s native owner to give the okay for me to go and take care of it.

This sucks :( I try to do the right thing and borrow other people’s property instead of buying something (cheapish) myself. I play the patient game, borrow two machines and now I’ve gone and broken one.

And so the waiting game continues…